What She Loves Most About Him
by theflexibledetective
Summary: Set during Rise. When Castle asks Beckett, she admits that she and Josh broke up. What she's not ready to do is admit why. One shot.


**A/N: So, I feel like I really jumped on to this Castle fandom late, I started watching the show this past December, and it took me all of a month to catch up. So I feel like I'm rehashing scenes that probably have already been broken down in a million different ways, but these characters are too much fun for me not to play around with. Right now, I'm finishing the second chapter for my other story, _Control_, and I'm working on an angsty one shot. Hopefully I'll have those posted in the next few days, but we'll see how much time I have to edit them!**

* * *

"I needed some time to just work through everything," Beckett said. The busy street corner wasn't the most ideal spot for them to have this conversation, but Beckett preferred it to somewhere more intimate. She was still just trying to deal with everything that was happening.

"Did Josh help you with that?" Castle asked. The words were out of his mouth before they could stop them, but he was glad he said it. He wished she remembered.

Beckett looked away for a moment, hesitating. She didn't want to have a deep conversation like this topic begged. But, seeing the look on Castle's face, and knowing what she had put him through for months, she owed him this much.

"We broke up," she sighed reluctantly. She didn't want to watch the hopefulness flash in his eyes, she didn't want him to make the assumption that they broke up because of him because of, what the two of them shared that she and Josh so clearly lacked. So she walked away.

She wished she could give him more than hope. Beckett had wanted for so long for the two of them to be together, but it seemed as if the timing would never be quite right. Yes, Castle wanted a relationship with her now, but she was too broken, too damaged to be with him. She'd only destroy him if she was with him, just like she had destroyed her and Josh.

* * *

It wasn't long after she had been released from the hospital that the nightmares had started. Josh was by her side every night he wasn't on shift at the hospital. Luckily, he kept himself fairly busy so his sleepovers were only a few nights a week, but Beckett dreaded them after that first nightmare.

The nightmare was just as bad as it had been in real life – she was standing at the podium giving her speech over Montgomery's casket, and she could feel the slice of the bullet as it raced through her muscles and lodged itself near her heart. Castle was tackling her to the ground, holding her, caressing her face, and begging for her to live.

"I love you, Kate." he'd say, over and over. This time, she had a sick feeling that this was it. She wasn't going to wake up. She was going to die, and he'd never know.

Beckett woke up crying. Josh was already awake and he was watching her carefully. It took her a minute to calm down and get her bearings.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" she asked. Stupid question. Of course she did.

"It's okay," he told her, but there was a tightness in the corner of his eyes. She was too shaken to think much of it. Instead of going back to sleep, she moved into the living room, and settled in with a book until she finally passed out in exhaustion.

They didn't talk of that first night. Beckett could tell that he was upset about something, but she was too busy with psychologist appointments, physical therapy appointments, and doctor's appointments to ask. On some subconscious level she recognized that maybe it was better not to.

She couldn't have sex for six to eight weeks after the incident. While neither of them minded because they both understood the necessity of healing times for injuries like hers, Beckett was especially anxious for the six week wait to be over. Josh was acting distant every time she had a nightmare, and Beckett held out hope that maybe sex would, if not fix them, then allow them to reconnect again. They never made it past four.

Josh slept over again, and Beckett dreamt.

It started with Beckett at the podium, speaking. She stopped, mid speech, when she noticed someone walking up the center aisle. Beckett squinted against the sunlight, trying to place where she had seen that person before, and her heart nearly stopped. Johanna Beckett was standing in front of Kate.

"Mom?" Beckett said. Castle grabbed her hand.

"Kate, run!" he said.

Beckett looked at Castle as he tried to pull her away from the podium, and back to Johanna. Johanna pulled out a gun, Kate's gun, and pointed it straight at Kate.

"I'm sorry," she said, and pulled the trigger.

Everything spun dizzyingly for a moment, and when the world had rightened itself again, she and Castle found themselves in his loft, still clutching hands.

"Castle…" she said. Castle stepped closer to her.

"Shh," he said, and kissed her gently. Her heart started pounding, and it took a moment for her brain to catch up before she was kissing him back, pushing up against him, wrapping her arms around him, trying to get closer, closer. He pulled her into him, he held her tight, and it wasn't close enough for either of them. His kisses were frantic, he sucked her lip between his teeth and bit down. She moaned and threaded her fingers through his hair, tugging as he forced her against the wall, moving his lips from hers to her cheeks, her eyelids, her collarbone, her breasts.

He grabbed her legs and pulled her up against him, and Beckett hung there, gasping, pinned between Castle and the wall, and suddenly there was friction, and hips moving together, and even with their clothes on it was single-handedly the hottest thing that she'd ever done in her life.

"Oh god, Castle," she said.

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate." he gasped into her ear, and Kate's world started spinning again.

Beckett woke up with a gasp and shot up in bed. She was sweating, and every place that Castle's lips had touched, where they had been connected as she was pinned against that wall, throbbed deliciously. She ached with want.

Josh cleared his throat, and Beckett jumped.

"You know you talk in your sleep." he said. Beckett bristled.

"I didn't realize," she said.

"You dream about him a lot" he said.

Beckett considered playing stupid but it was pointless. She could tell by the way Josh had his arms crossed and was half-turned away from her that it was pointless. All those times he'd witnessed her nightmares she must've been calling out for Castle in her sleep. She could feel a hot flush creep up her neck as she realized exactly what kind of dream Josh knew she was having tonight, and how different she must have sounded calling out for Castle in _that _way.

"I have no control over what I dream," she said. He shrugged.

"Some people say that dreams are a manifestation your subconscious desires."

"If that was true then I must be _dying_ to get shot again," she snapped.

Josh winced but slid out of bed regardless. Beckett didn't need to ask what he was doing, she could feel it. Slowly they had been drifting apart over the weeks, and this was the proverbial straw. It was over.

"Look, Kate, I'm sorry. I've tried -"

"Yeah," she said.

"I'd still like to be friends…you can call me any time."

Beckett choked down a sharp laugh that was bubbling up her throat.

"Sure," she said. She wouldn't call. She had too much pride. And he wouldn't stick around forever. Doctors without Borders would steal him away, and he could just disappear and forget all about that broken girl in New York.

It took him the work of five minutes to get dressed, and with one last kiss on her cheek, he was gone.

Beckett rolled over to stare at the clock. Four in the morning. She wished she could talk to Castle right now, just to hear his voice. Or maybe she just wished to slide into his bed with him and finish what her dream had started. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand, and before she could second-guess herself, she blocked her number and called his phone. He didn't answer. But his voicemail clicked on.

"Hello, you have reached Richard Castle, you lucky thing, you…"

Beckett listened to the entire recording and hung up before she could leave a message.

It had been months and Beckett still hadn't called Castle. The dreams continued, and she'd wake up, aching and desperately lonely. But she wasn't ready for what Castle was offering her. He loved her. And that took a kind of commitment that Beckett knew she couldn't handle right now. So after she and Josh broke it off, she headed to her dad's cabin, looking for some time to heal on her own. She never called Castle again. She didn't want him to take care of her; she wanted a relationship where they could dive into it together. If she had gone to him, she'd still be paddling in the shallow end, and he'd be the one drowning.

* * *

Seeing Castle again brought back the familiar ache, her desire. When she saw him in the bookstore, her heart had started pounding, and she had to school herself to sound totally neutral when she spoke to him. She still wasn't sure if she was ready.

* * *

"Did Josh help you with that?" he asked. She could see the pain in his eyes, and she wanted to make it go away.

"We broke up," she said. She wanted to cross the space between them, wanted to kiss him, and wanted to tell him how sorry, how _fucking_ sorry she was for all of it. She wanted to tell him that she was an asshole for what she did to him, and how she regretted it, and how she wished instead she had just told him she loved him too and he could make her breakfast in bed and hold her when she woke up screaming, and she could love him the way she wanted to, and enjoy the way he enjoyed the world; freely.

She wanted all of it so badly that she had to walk away for a moment to collect herself. She headed towards the swing set in the nearby playground.

Castle followed.

He always did. He was always there for her.

That's what she loves most about him.

* * *

**Thanks for reading, and please review! Any constructive criticism is much appreciated :)**


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